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this will probably be a different answer for mnay people, and could make for a good discussion.. i'm sorry if this has been posted before but here goes my interpretation for what is canon and why.

1. Twin Peaks: The Pilot (the 90 minutes verssion)2. Twin Peaks: The Pilot's international ending (this is debatable, but i see it as the unedited dream sequence of Episode 2 and in that context it works as Dale tells all of this ending in Episode 3 to Lucy and Andy, something that's very strange if you haven't seen or know about that ending. the intention was definitely to have the whole thing play out as a dream but without cuts to Dale sleeping so it only would be at the end he would wake up. Again this is debatable as canon, but i include it but it could go).3. Twin Peaks: Season 1 (of course)4. Twin Peaks: Season 2 (someone might try to argue for a retcon that everything after a certain point don't need to be seen as canon but with that I strongly disagree, EVERYTHING with Evelyn Marsh, Little Nicky, everything there is canon, no question... and of course the Beauty Pagan that Lana Millford won)5. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me6. The Log Lady intros (directed and written by Lynch, scored by Angelo)

7. Notice that all of this is included in The Entire Mystery Blu-Ray, i think you could make a case for the delted scenes of the series being Canon then but i'm not sure i'm willing to stretch that far, but perhaps the ones that were color trimmed and remastered to HD - they doesn't contradict the events in any way).

The Missing Pieces is definitely canon for me at this point though. It's made up as a weird movie on its own with new special effects, new music, etc. It was a precursor to The Return in a way. Same undertitles font for Deer Meadow and all that as would be used in The Return. And lines like "Is it Future or is it Past" and of course the whole Philip Jeffries / Buenos Aires thing can only be known as part of The Missing Pieces. so they use that as storytelling in the new series.

8. Mark Frost - The Secret History of Twin Peaks - (Although it does have things that don't add up from the original series in the same way that "Secret Diary" and "My Life, My Tapes" does i feel this is very different), it seems to be something larger at play with this and the fact that it was written by Mark Frost makes it canon for sure for me.

9. Twin Peaks: The Return.... Of course! That's it for me!

How about you? Would you include "Secret Diary" and the other earlier books.. Would you perhaps not include The Missing Pieces, etc. Discuss.

I'm just working through the box set and would agree everything you've listed is canon. What I found interesting was the last Log Lady intro for the final episode where it's clearly alluding to the doppelgängers...

KyleRickards wrote:I'm just working through the box set and would agree everything you've listed is canon. What I found interesting was the last Log Lady intro for the final episode where it's clearly alluding to the doppelgängers...

For now, The Missing Pieces are canon, and we can see it in the 3rd season first 5 episodes:

- Mike asking "Is it future, or is it past ?" like the Man From Another Place in TMP,- References to Argentina,- Marvin Rosand, (cook Toad) is marked as a "returning actor" in the list of 217, and he only appeared in TMP before,- The golden oyster-shape console in the red room. I don't think we saw it before TMP ?

For me, the old and new series and FWWM are definitive canon. TMP is as well, except where it directly contradicts the series/FWWM (aside from the use of alternate takes of the same moments, the main thing that springs to mind is the Jeffries scene taking place in 1989, when the final FWWM edit retcons it to 1988. Yes, I know various in-world rationales have been proposed by fans to cover this discrepancy.) Same for the series deleted scenes (including the ones from bootlegs): canon except where they contradict the actual series edits (e.g., Bobby and Shelly probably didn't have pretty much the same conversation about Shelly's pageant speech in two different locations in Episode 27).

The books and trading cards are deuterocanon -- I'll accept what they say as canon cautiously except/until contradicted, but I don't put as much stock in it as I do the main show and film.

I don't view the Log Lady intros as strictly canon because I have a hard time believing Margaret set up a camera in her cabin to shoot random abstract messages. But I do think they contain key insights into the mythology which are canon.

I'm taking it as canon - Lynch & Frost must've been a fair way through writing the new series when BTW was put together.

Knew I was forgetting something critical! This occupies the same space as the Log Lady intros for me. I don't believe that acclaimed director David Lynch (who looks uncannily like Gordon Cole) tapped into the afterlife and interviewed the Palmer family. However, I think all the information conveyed by the Palmers is relevant canon.

Mr. Reindeer wrote:For me, the old and new series and FWWM are definitive canon. TMP is as well, except where it directly contradicts the series/FWWM (aside from the use of alternate takes of the same moments, the main thing that springs to mind is the Jeffries scene taking place in 1989, when the final FWWM edit retcons it to 1988. Yes, I know various in-world rationales have been proposed by fans to cover this discrepancy.) Same for the series deleted scenes (including the ones from bootlegs): canon except where they contradict the actual series edits (e.g., Bobby and Shelly probably didn't have pretty much the same conversation about Shelly's pageant speech in two different locations in Episode 27).

The books and trading cards are deuterocanon -- I'll accept what they say as canon cautiously except/until contradicted, but I don't put as much stock in it as I do the main show and film.

I don't view the Log Lady intros as strictly canon because I have a hard time believing Margaret set up a camera in her cabin to shoot random abstract messages. But I do think they contain key insights into the mythology which are canon.

yeah that Jeffries thing is a bit unfortunate, but i sitll think that the timeline in the film is slightly wrong and that this was in February 1989, rigtht before the murder of Laura. the only thing is that doesn't mesh with this happening similtaneously with Chefter Desmons disappperance. but you can't win them all.. in my own retcon Jeffries (just like in the book and FWWM script) appeared in early 1989.

I go the same way as the Dr Who community does: canon does not exist since even the creators hate this notion and refuse to give any. (I remember Frost stating in the Twin Peaks Unwrapped podcast that he never uses this word and I would be surprised to hear David Lynch ever using anything like canon for any of his works).

And so using this rule to try and not betray the creators intentions, every licensed narrative products meant to be in the main universe have the same validity. And they should also be non interactive : no board games allowed since every time you play it, it would have a different outcome.

Yes, to me MLMT is as canon as FWWM, even though they are contradictory but the movie contradicts the main series already anyway.

In the Frost podcast interview, he even states that to him the Twin Peaks universe is broad enough to encompass anything they did.

The only things that imo remain debatable are :Between Two Worlds and the Twin Peaks Fest Greeting since they have Lynch as himself and not the hearing-impaired Cole, so it arguably is not in the narrative universe.The Collectible CardArt seem not to be a narrative source but they are also often written using the first tense.

Of course, the notion of canon is used only for a community to agree on what "actually" happened even if it is contradictory (like the Sherlock Holmes canon and even the Bible canon are). Since the OP question is about "canon", I tried to answer in the less subjective possible way.

My headcanon on the other hand is to try and find ways to make everything written above fit together but knowing that even the writers likely didn't think a lot about it, I don't try that much neither.

I'd be happy if the discrepancies with FWWM and the Diary and the series, and the Autobiography and FWWM are going to be explained in some kind of clever mind-blowing quantum/Wizard of Oz way in the Return. Not expecting anything though. But they would have 25 years to retcon it, and make everything canon. Then I'd eat all my complaining words about the Return.

For me the books are canon. Yes, there are A LOT of inconsistancies. But most of them I can 'filter out' in my mind.

But there's one that particularly bothers me since the new season is airing. I'll add a spoiler tag because of the place where this topic is.

Spoiler:

Tamara Preston receives the dossier (TSHOTP) in 2016. I think it's safe to say the show takes place in 2013 or 2014 (1989 Lucy is pregnant, Wally Brando is 24). This doesn't make any sense, because it's clear to me that Tamara Preston reads the dossier before the events in season 3. Or am I misinterpreting something here? Please enlighten me! It bothers me more than other continuity errors, because both works were made so close to each other by the two main show-creators working toghether and it seems odd Frost nor Lynch talked about this to each other.